PRINCE Harry will plant hundreds of trees in his official life but he may never have to work as hard as he did doing it in the Atlantic Rainforest in Brazil today.

Members of the Royal Family usually have the simple task of just adding a few shovels of earth to a tree already placed in prepared ground by somebody else.

But when the fourth in line to the throne visited a village in the rainforest outside Sao Paulo, he not only had to dig the hole, but also backfill it, hammer in the commemorative plaque, tear off the tree's name label and give it a watering.

A typical tree planting scene sees the immaculately dressed royal planting the tree avoid even getting soil on his brightly polished shoes.

It was not quite like that for Harry, 29.

"This could take a while," he said when he was invited to plant a 2ft manaca da Serra sapling and was handed a post-hole digger.

By the time he was finished, in blazing sunshine and 30C heat, the Prince was covered in sweat and dirt and a large damp patch covered the back of his olive green open-necked shirt.

Harry is interested in tackling deforestation [PA]

His mother Princess Diana was very famous here in Brazil and I think he is very handsome, open-minded and receptive like his mother

Ester Miceno, one of the Prince's guides

With beads of sweat dripping down his neck, his face glowed a rosy pink.

"Did you enjoy it?" a television reporter asked and the Prince reflected diplomatically on one of the staple tasks of his trade.

"Planting trees - it's what we do," he said.

The Prince was on a visit to the village of Cota 200 to learn about a project that helps local people make a living from natural resources rather than cutting down trees.

Harry, like his father Prince Charles, is concerned about deforestation, and wanted to see for himself how it is being tackled by communities that live in and around the forests.

More than 92 per cent of the Atlantic Rainforest has already been destroyed by logging and urbanisation, and the Prince¹s tree-planting ceremony not only marked his visit but also symbolised a plan to replant the rainforest.

The Serro do Mar and Atlantic Forest Mosaics System is a state government funded project that protects 50,000 acres of rainforest.

He wasn't afraid to get hot and sweaty [PA]

It is recovering 3,000 acres of rainforest, resettling 6,700 families who are living in protected or at risk areas and improving water quality.

Eduardo Trani, the project's co-ordinator, said he was surprised the 29-year-old Prince was prepared to get down and dirty when he was asked to plant the manaca da Serra tree.

He said: "I didn't think he would get so involved in the tree-planting.

"He said he liked the way the children got involved in the projects, so if people learn to take care of the environment they won't destroy it."

One of the Prince's guides was Ester Miceno, 53, who has lived in the village all of her life.

She had hoped to get a kiss from Harry but was left disappointed when he declined on the grounds that too many other women would also want one.

She said: "I have been following his life since he was a child.

"His mother Princess Diana was very famous here in Brazil and I think he is very handsome, open-minded and receptive like his mother."

The village of Cota 200, so-called because it is 200 metres above sea level, was originally a work camp for navvies building the main road from Santos to Sao Paulo. It became a small shanty town when a chemical works opened nearby and slowly started swallowing up surrounding forest.

The project's co-ordinator was impressed with how involved Harry was [PA]

But the local authority stepped in seven years ago to resettle 1,900 of the village's 2,600 families and to found sustainable jobs for those who wanted to stay.

At a cookery demonstration in the village, Harry tasted a Brazilian dish called caponata, which is traditionally made with carrots, onions, raisins and olive oil, but which chef David Hertz had made with the added ingredient of banana.

Mr Hertz, 40, who runs the non-profit organisation Gastromotiva, explained to the Prince that he teaches local people to make nutritious food using the fruit but also the skin and heart, which grows below the bananas.

He said: "I told the Prince that we teach a co-operative of women in the village how to cook using all the parts of the banana, which is plentiful here, and they sell their food to people driving past.

"He really liked the caponata, he had two mouthfuls and I was really surprised because we were told he wouldn't eat anything.

"He said he likes cooking so I gave him a cookery book as a gift."

It will stay with him, along with the memory of his hardest ever tree planting.

At the tree, armed with a hammer he struck a plaque that bore his name in Portuguese "Principle Henry de Gales" into the ground and joked "If I hit it any harder it's going to break".

When someone asked if it was his first Manaca tree planting he laughed and said "Yes" adding "I can't even pronounce it".